


It's Always Greener (When I'm Next to You)

by flipflop_diva



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Best Friends, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Happy Ending, Natasha Romanov Lives, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:53:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24430891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: Sometimes he dreams about it. About that moment when he realized she didn't come back from Vormir. But then he remembers she did.
Relationships: Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30
Collections: Writing Rainbow Green, Writing Rainbow Make Up Round





	It's Always Greener (When I'm Next to You)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GirlOfSaltAndStars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GirlOfSaltAndStars/gifts).



Sometimes he dreams about it. About that moment when he realized she wasn’t there. The ache in his heart. The panic in his gut. The desire to move time and space to find her.

Sometimes he wakes up, his breath caught in his throat, his heart beating wildly. And he has to turn his head to remind himself that she’s right there. And sometimes he has to listen to her breathe while she sleeps to remind himself that she’s real. That he got her back.

And sometimes she stirs in her sleep and moves closer to him, and he feels himself relax. Because she’s next to him. Where she belongs.

Other times, she’s the one who dreams about it. Who wakes up, a scream caught in her throat, tears in her eyes and starting to seep on to her cheeks.

Falling is all she’ll tell him, and he doesn’t ask. Sometimes he wants to know what it was like in that other realm, what happened to her, but it’s not his place. If she wants to tell him someday, she will, and he will listen.

For now, he just holds her when she cries, wraps his arms around her and reminds her that she’s here and she’s safe and that it’s over.

And it is over. It’s really, truly over.

He still has his shield and she still has her Widow’s bites, but they are tucked away in the back of a closet they don’t use, next to both their suits, packed up and folded and placed carefully into a box. 

Now when the world is in trouble, they get updates from Maria or Fury or Coulson, but they don’t rush out to save it. The world is in better hands than what they can give it anymore. They are here if they are needed, but they both know they aren’t really needed.

So instead they pass the time a different way. The run through the streets of Brooklyn together. Steve teaches Natasha board games she rolls her eyes over. They watch cheesy movies and hours upon hours of television shows they never had time for before. 

Steve teaches Natasha to cook and to paint, and she teaches him to dance. They have time now for ballet performances and museums, for traveling because they want to and not because they have to.

They have time to sit on the balcony and sip wine and talk.

Most of all, they have time. Time to live. To love. To be.

Time he thought once was gone. But he got her back, and she’s here, and she’s his everything, and he’s hers.

And in these moments, with her next to him, stealing his popcorn and teasing him about something or other, her eyes sparkling as she laughs and her hair a red halo around her head, he knows that everything that came before was worth it, because it led them here.

And finally, here, he knows, is where he was always meant to be.


End file.
